Overview of biological consequences of exposure to plutonium and higher actinides

Since studies of human populations exposed to transuranic elements provide no incontrovertible evidence of health effects, experimental animal studies are the only source of information about biological consequences of such exposures. The primary tissues of interest are lung, bone, bone marrow, liver and lymph nodes, the tissues in which transuranic elements deposit and that have shown exposure-related lesions in experimental animals. Results of animal studies suggest that workers with intakes of one ALI of plutonium by inhalation each year for 50 years could receive doses approaching those at which effects have been observed in liver, lymph nodes and skeleton of experimental animals. The range of risk estimates for stochastic effects, fatal lung, bone and liver cancers, obtained from animal studies with actinides brackets those from studies of human populations exposed to non-actinide alpha emitters, radon, radium, and thorium. (author)